On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drop
I' the bottom of the cowslip.
[[063]] The Guelder rose--This elegant plant is a native of Britain, and when in flower, has at first sight, the appearance of a little maple tree that has been pelted with snow balls, and we almost fear to see them melt away in the warm sunshine--Glenny.
[[064]] In a greenhouse
[[065]] Some flowers have always been made to a certain degree emblematical of sentiment in England as elsewhere, but it was the Turks who substituted flowers for words to such an extent as to entitle themselves to be regarded as the inventors of the floral language.
[[066]] The floral or vegetable language is not always the language of love or compliment. It is sometimes severe and scornful. A gentleman sent a lady a rose as a declaration of his passion and a slip of paper attached, with the inscription--"If not accepted, I am off to the war." The lady forwarded in return a mango (man, go!)
[[067]] No part of the creation supposed to be insentient, exhibits to an imaginative observer such an aspect of spiritual life and such an apparent sympathy with other living things as flowers, shrubs and trees. A tree of the genus Mimosa, according to Niebuhr, bends its branches downward as if in hospitable salutation when any one approaches near to it. The Arabs, are on this account so fond of the "courteous tree" that the injuring or cutting of it down is strictly prohibited.
[[068]] It has been observed that the defense is supplied in the following line--want of sense--a stupidity that "errs in ignorance and not in cunning."
[[069]] There is apparently so much doubt and confusion is to the identity of the true Hyacinth, and the proper application of its several names that I shall here give a few extracts from other writers on this subject.
Some authors suppose the Red Martagon Lily to be the poetical Hyacinth of the ancients, but this is evidently a mistaken opinion, as the azure blue color alone would decide and Pliny describes the Hyacinth as having a sword grass and the smell of the grape flower, which agrees with the Hyacinth, but not with the Martagon. Again, Homer mentions it with fragrant flowers of the same season of the Hyacinth. The poets also notice the hyacinth under different colours, and every body knows that the hyacinth flowers with sapphire colored purple, crimson, flesh and white bells, but a blue martagon will be sought for in vain. Phillips' Flora Historica.
A doubt hangs over the poetical history of the modern, as well as of the ancient flower, owing to the appellation Harebell being, indiscriminately applied both to Scilla wild Hyacinth, and also to Campanula rotundifolia, Blue Bell. Though the Southern bards have occasionally misapplied the word Harebell it will facilitate our understanding which flower is meant if we bear in mind as a general rule that that name is applied differently in various parts of the island, thus the Harebell of Scottish writers is the Campanula, and the Bluebell, so celebrated in Scottish song, is the wild Hyacinth or Scilla while in England the same names are used conversely, the Campanula being the Bluebell and the wild Hyacinth the Harebell. Eden Warwick.